Evidence of meeting #33 for Foreign Affairs and International Development in the 43rd Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was russia.
A video is available from Parliament.
3:55 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Sven Spengemann
Thank you very much.
Mr. Bergeron, the floor is yours for the next six minutes.
May 6th, 2021 / 3:55 p.m.
Bloc
Stéphane Bergeron Bloc Montarville, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Volkov, thank you so much for joining us today. We really appreciate your taking the time to have this conversation with us. May I express our full solidarity and ask you please to pass it on to Mr. Navalny.
A few days ago, I also had the opportunity to speak at the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe and to demand freedom for Alexei Navalny. I was very proud to do so on behalf of my colleagues. Canada, like other Western countries such as the United States and the countries of the European Union, has taken a number of measures along the lines you are asking, such as imposing sanctions against certain oligarchs funding the activities of Vladimir Putin. Canada has sanctioned nine prominent Russians.
Perhaps you or your organization could send us the names of other oligarchs whom the Government of Canada might sanction.
If the objective is to cut off the funds feeding the brutish Vladimir Putin, I feel that we really have to be specific with our actions and to be able to clearly identify those persons, as well as the reasons why they should be on the list.
3:55 p.m.
Chief of Staff for Alexei Navalny, As an Individual
Thank you so much for your support and for your question, Mr. Bergeron.
Talking of personal sanctions, first of all it's important that Europe, for instance, and also the U.K., U.S., and Canada, took the first step. Yes, they went from sectoral economic sanctions to personalized sanctions, because unfortunately every time a round of sectoral sanctions is launched, they of course open a lot of champagne there in the Kremlin. They're just happy.
This is because foreign sanctions against the Russian economy are something they can blame everything on. Why does the income of the average household in Russia decrease for eight years in a row? It's because of the evil West, because of NATO, because of the U.S., because they are trying to kill our economy with sanctions. Such sanctions just give them an opportunity to steal more and explain everything using their propaganda machine.
Contrary to that, personal sanctions, we believe, are efficient, because propaganda can't sell them as being sanctions against Russia. They are against individuals, and these individuals are, of course, not our country and don't represent our country. It is thus very important that, for instance, the European Union adopted the European Magnitsky law for human rights violations and started to sanction some individuals.
Now, having said that, the first list of individuals was quite weak. They were mostly people such as security forces officials who, yes, are in charge and are responsible for Mr. Navalny's poisoning. Still, they don't travel abroad and they don't have assets abroad.
The idea of personal sanctions against Putin's friends and oligarchs is not to see Mr. Putin shorn of financial support. Unfortunately, he has access to enormous funds. Russia has exported oil and gas worth more than $3 trillion U.S. over the 20 years of Putin's rule, and he and his friends got hold of the majority of these funds. The idea is to build leverage against Putin and his friends, because every time Europe or the U.S. tries to build bridges, to compromise, to build a dialogue, unfortunately Putin, with his psychology, considers it to be just a sign of weakness.
He considers his Western counterparts, unfortunately, to be hypocrites. Quite reliable sources have said that his favourite TV series is House of Cards. He thinks that they are all...you know, they say the words they have to say about human rights, liberty, democracy. That's because they have to say it for their voters, but they don't really believe it. “They need my oil and and gas,” thinks Putin, “and they really need money. They will deal with me, they will work with me, whatever I do. There are no red lines, and I can do whatever I want.”
Every time President Macron or the Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz supposes that despite everything, despite all the human rights violations, they still have to compromise and so on, Putin thinks, “Ha, I have won again. They still need my oil and gas so much.”
The personal sanctions against Putin's oligarchs are important to win leverage against him, to build a strong position. Freezing his assets, and these are nominal—these are assets of his friends, but of course they're his personal assets, actually—would allow western leaders to talk to Putin from a much stronger position than they do now, because money really matters a lot for him.
That's our idea. Appeasement politics, unfortunately, has failed.
4 p.m.
Liberal
4 p.m.
Bloc
Stéphane Bergeron Bloc Montarville, QC
The question to Mr. Volkov was about individual sanctions. We are expecting him to provide a list, not aloud, of course, of oligarchs and the reasons why they should be on that list. I just wanted to make sure that he will be able to send the list to our clerk.
4 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Sven Spengemann
Okay.
Thank you very much.
Thank you Mr. Bergeron.
Thank you, Mr. Volkov.
We will go straight on—
4 p.m.
Chief of Staff for Alexei Navalny, As an Individual
It also came to my mind that we have this list of 35 names that we actually published in some media, but I'll be happy to share it also with your committee.
4 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Sven Spengemann
Okay.
We will now go to Mr. Harris for the final segment in round one, again for six minutes.
Mr. Harris, you have the floor.
4 p.m.
NDP
Jack Harris NDP St. John's East, NL
Thank you, Chair; and thank you, Mr. Volkov, for joining us.
First of all, on my own behalf and I think I speak for the very vast majority of Canadians, who abhor what's happening to Mr. Navalny in Russia and also other individuals who have been taken on by the state and in some cases murdered and poisoned, and in Mr. Navalny's case, the ongoing threats and imprisonment and attempted assassination, we admire the personal courage and strength of Mr. Navalny and people like yourself in taking on this very heavy challenge.
I'm sure that the decision he made to go back to Russia and face the consequences of being sure that he's there to lead will inspire others to also continue to try to bring about the kind of change that is required inside the Russian Federation.
That said, you're speaking openly here in a public meeting about the issues. You have means of communicating with people inside Russia, sometimes unencumbered, sometimes found out, but by the sounds of things, you do have a means of getting your message across to people.
I suppose this is an aspect of how disinformation can take place. I'm assuming you are aware of a report by Amnesty International, which is a well-known and well-respected international organization that supports people who are fighting against authoritarianism, dictatorship and human rights violations throughout the world. There was a report published suggesting that they had removed Mr. Navalny from their list of prisoners of conscience because of some reported statements that he had made in the past.
Are you aware of that allegation, which seems to have been taken seriously for some particular time, and do you know anything about where that might have come from?
4:05 p.m.
Chief of Staff for Alexei Navalny, As an Individual
Thank you very much, Mr. Harris. This is a very important issue because it actually showcases the spread and the strength of a Kremlin disinformation campaign against Alexei Navalny and how seriously they are taking Alexei Navalny and his movement.
Actually, it was back in 2013 when Navalny ran for mayor of Moscow and they started to plant articles of disinformation against him in the western media. For instance, they posted an article. They paid for an article in the Jerusalem Post pertaining to him being anti-Semitic, which is quite funny because he was a guest of honour on my chuppah, and a lot of different stuff like that.
This year's campaign was, of course, the most noticeable. It included attempts to undermine his credibility and the credibility of our movement on many different international platforms, including people impersonating me, contacting different national and international bodies such as the parliamentary assembly of OSCE and others, and also including disinformation.
The case of Amnesty International was very remarkable because they succeeded in that case. They presented them with a number of falsely interpreted quotes or the statements that Alexei Navalny made in 2007 and later revoked and condemned them, but they managed to push this case through some of the original branches of Amnesty, which led them to their decision.
Now, fortunately, he has been in touch with them. They are campaigning strongly and we are very grateful to them. They are campaigning worldwide to protect him and to release him. It is my information that they will also soon reconsider their decision about Alexei's status as a prisoner of conscience. They told me just yesterday that they will issue a press release on May 12 after they have examined how a Russian disinformation campaign managed to influence them and how they were made victims of this disinformation campaign.
They will not only reinstate his status, but they will also issue a post-mortem, which I hope will be very interesting, of what happened and how it happened.
4:05 p.m.
NDP
Jack Harris NDP St. John's East, NL
And hopefully a condemnation of the action to create this whole thing in the first place.
I'm wondering another thing. We know what you're facing and the difficulties of operating in the official election sphere in Russia. There is a question, I suppose, of where you go from here in terms of the campaign to bring about change inside the Russian Federation.
I'm wondering how you capture the spirit of the people inside Russia, who are seeking.... They don't like authoritarianism any more than anybody else does, but after the failure of the Soviet Union, for example, the situation did not lead to a widespread increase in people's standard of living or their ability to operate within a non-authoritarian regime. We have Mr. Putin offering this still, and we wonder whether people can be expected to believe that things might change under a different regime.
I'm wondering, then, when your campaign.... I'm looking at something that's published by Radio Free Europe about the creation of a new political party in 2018, which may have been the last time a new party was created. This is the Russia of the Future party, created in May 2019 by your organization, which talks about real changes and real reforms.
I would call these “generalizations”, to some extent, not creating, it seems to me, a vision for a new Russia or a new Russian federation with the kind of prosperity that might come to elevate people's standard of living. I wonder, do you have the kind of vision that attracts people? We see reports of opinion polls by Levada-Center—I don't know whether you believe those polls or not—showing that they don't seem to be totally pro-Putin but don't seem to be recognizing that your movement is as strong as we might want to see it or you might want to see it.
4:10 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Sven Spengemann
Mr. Harris, I'm sorry, but you're a minute and a half over your allotment. I'm wondering if we could ask Mr. Volkov to park that question in his mind and return to it in your second, follow-up opportunity in round two, which we have to go to now just to be able to get through the full second round.
I will turn it over, with your indulgence, to Mr. Chong for the next five minutes, please, but let's park the question by Mr. Harris and circle back to it.
Mr. Chong.
4:10 p.m.
Conservative
Michael Chong Conservative Wellington—Halton Hills, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Volkov, thank you for taking the time to appear in front of us today.
You mentioned that sanctions are effective in countering President Putin's actions, a view I share. Alexei Navalny published a list of Kremlin oligarchs who are responsible for enabling and keeping President Putin in power. Some of those oligarchs hold significant assets in Canada.
Recently, the former world chess champion and Russian opposition figure Garry Kasparov also urged Western governments to apply sanctions on those Russians responsible for the poisoning and arrest of your colleague Alexei Navalny.
While the Canadian government has sanctioned some Russian individuals, it has inexplicably omitted others. To that end, I would like to ask you about whether the Canadian government should apply sanctions on five specific individual. All five of these individuals have been sanctioned already by the United States, by the United Kingdom and by the European Union.
The first person I'm wondering whether or not you think should be sanctioned by the Canadian government is Yevgeny Prigozhin, who runs the Internet Research Agency and the mercenary Wagner Group, and is on the FBI most wanted list, and whose organization has targeted Canada and Canadian government officials with disinformation.
What is your view on putting him on the sanctions list?
4:10 p.m.
Chief of Staff for Alexei Navalny, As an Individual
Yes, of course. He is a very dangerous criminal, first of all.
4:10 p.m.
Conservative
Michael Chong Conservative Wellington—Halton Hills, ON
Thank you.
I have four other people I want to ask you about.
There is Dmitry Kovtun, who is a former KGB FSB agent and now a businessman in Russia.
4:10 p.m.
Chief of Staff for Alexei Navalny, As an Individual
Well, Kovtun is the guy who is responsible for the killing of Alexander Litvinenko in London in 2006. He is a KGB agent. He doesn't travel abroad; he doesn't have assets. Sanctions will not, unfortunately, harm him, but still it's an important symbol.
4:10 p.m.
Conservative
Michael Chong Conservative Wellington—Halton Hills, ON
Okay.
The third person I'm wondering about is somebody who was identified by a royal commission in the United Kingdom as being responsible for the poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko, someone who is also a former KGB agent and now a Russian parliamentarian. His name is Andrei Lugovoy.
4:15 p.m.
Chief of Staff for Alexei Navalny, As an Individual
Yes. Lugovoy and Kovtun [Technical difficulty—Editor] together, so this is the same story.
4:15 p.m.
Conservative
Michael Chong Conservative Wellington—Halton Hills, ON
Two other individuals who were sent to Salisbury, England to poison Sergei Skripal with Novichok were Colonel Alexander Mishkin and Colonel Anatoliy Chepiga.
4:15 p.m.
Chief of Staff for Alexei Navalny, As an Individual
Sure. Of course.
Unfortunately, with the exception of Prigozhin, the last four names you mentioned are just criminals and killers. They are Russian security forces officers who committed lethal attacks in the U.K. in 2004 and 2018. They have to be brought to court, but sanctions will only have a moral effect.
4:15 p.m.
Conservative
Michael Chong Conservative Wellington—Halton Hills, ON
Prigozhin certainly is somebody with significant interests internationally.